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Donald Trump Jr couldn’t quite understand it. “You have to be kidding me?!” he told his Twitter followers, pointing to a quote from Sadiq Khan that said the terrorism threat is “part and parcel” of life in London. But what the London Mayor said is, alas, quite true: terrorist attacks are a constant threat and yet the city has flourished. This makes an important point often lost in the aftermath of such events – it’s not that terrorism will fail, but that it has already failed. Demonstrably so.

The capital was not paralysed with fear yesterday; the response was similar to that following other outrages over the years. Since the IRA started its regular attacks in 1973, the city has adapted. Passengers...